News & Stories
Frankfurt. "Apps" are only interesting for large companies with over 1,500 employees. Small and medium-sized enterprises with up to 250 employees, on the other hand, view the use of such applications for their business travellers as less important.
Uttendorf. The Austrian "big hotelier" Wilfried Holleis loves big projects. Now he wants to correct an "initial mistake" of Weisssee Glacier World with an investment of 10 to 15 million euros.
Berlin. Business is humming again, but there is still some scepticism. Particularly at the 14th International Hotel Investment Forum, it turned out that the financial world cannot keep up with the sector’s demand for new projects yet. There are still major regional differences. In contrast, the 45th ITB was more colourful and versatile: the largest tourism barometer in the world indicated “clear weather”, the mood was positive right from the start and significantly better than last year. However, order volumes during the five days remained on the 2010 level of more than six billion euros – at least according to a preliminary estimate. A comparison of statistics showed decreasing numbers of visitors, whereas the number of trade visitors remained on the same level. The convention supporting programme turned out to be an ITB magnet recording a 15-percent increase in visitors.
Berlin. For the past nine months, the new "Business Unit" NH Resorts has been in the making, now it has introduced itself at ITB Berlin. The takeover of Hesperia Hotels has washed in an amount of resort hotels under the NH roof that now needs their own marketing.
Zurich. French holidaymakers seek budget food, Italians have the most sex with strangers, the Spanish splash their cash, Indian women eat fast food, the Swiss loathe topless sunbathing and sustainability and eco-tourism are most important to Swedes. These are just some of the stark cross-cultural behavioural differences highlighted between 12 disparate markets when on holiday and published at ITB 2011 this week in Berlin.
Doha. In the middle of Doha, a completely new city district is planned to be built using traditional architecture together with modern technology. The “Musheireb” project should transform the architectural centre of Doha with narrow alleyways, pedestrian zones, and an atmosphere that reflects the traditional Qatari culture. Apart from 950 new living quarters, the plans include the erection of theatres, galleries, restaurants and shops; four hotels and two new congress centres are also planned. The redevelopment company appointed for the project is Dohaland, a subsidiary of the Qatar Foundation. The total costs for the transformation are approximately five billion US dollars.
New Delhi. India is a colourful and chaotic country and the touristic trade fairs and exhibitions are just the same. With the "South Asian Travel Trade Exhibition", an outbound trade fair seems to be establishing itself and showing potential for the future. This is probably one reason why ITB Berlin joined as a strategical partner three years ago.
Nuremberg. GfK Travel Insights, the tourism distribution panel of the Gesellschaft fuer Konsumforschung in Nuremberg recently started analysing hotel reservations. It analyses and evaluates up to 700,000 reservations involving hotel stays in detail per month. This creates transparency with respect to market development, demand, market shares and market potential. GfK will present further details next week at ITB Berlin 2011.
Cairo/Vienna. Egypt’s revolution has swept empty the hotels, beaches and World Heritage sites. Today in Cairo, people are protesting to bring back tourism.
Frankfurt/M. There are five key trends in the holiday house sector: city trips are on the rise, more and more couples favour holiday houses, travel duration is getting shorter, there is an increasing interest in European and long-range destinations, and more and more vacationers are also taking safety into consideration when choosing their travel destination.